With all the attention that the Bakken formation has brought to N. Dakota, it's easy to forget about Alaska.

BP recently announced Monday that it will spend $1 billion to spark crude production from Alaska’s declining North Slope, weeks after the state decided to give the oil industry a $750 million annual tax cut.

The company says it plans to add two drilling rigs to its Prudhoe Bay field, bringing the count up to nine, the highest in about six years. New well work and drilling, along with upgrades of existing facilities, could support 200 new jobs, the company said.

According to FuelFix.com, with the agreement of BP's 'working interest partners' at Prudhoe Bay, including ConocoPhillips and Exxon Mobil Corp., BP will begin evaluating another $3 billion potential investment in additional development projects in the field’s west end.

The prospective development could include the construction of drilling pads and expansion of existing ones, possibly facilitating the drilling of more than 110 wells, following two to three years of appraisal and engineering work.

BP also will begin expansions and upgrades aimed at reducing bottlenecks at existing Prudhoe Bay facilities and better using the capacity of gathering centers that separate oil from natural gas and water. As the field has aged, more water is pulled out of the ground along with oil, and the facilities have been adapted to that dynamic. But newer areas generally yield an oilier mix. Handling them more efficiently can mean more production overall.

“There’s a lot more potential out there than when we brought these facilities up several decades ago, so we need some more facility capacity,” BP Alaska’s regional president, Janet Weiss, said in an interview. “It’s really about smartly using technology and the gathering centers’ capacity to fully utilize what’s up there and expand upon that.”

All of the changes seek to reverse the fortunes of Alaska’s North Slope — and the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System that transports the harvested oil to Valdez. Oil production from the North Slope peaked in 1988 at an average 2.02 million barrels per day, most of it from the Prudhoe Bay field that BP operates. It has been dropping ever since. But, that trend could quickly change.

BP said it expects to increase well work on the North Slope as soon as the fourth quarter of 2013, with the first additional rig expected on-site by 2015. A second would arrive in 2016.

Deeper infrastructure investment -- that's welcome news particularly for California as well as the Pacific Northwest!

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Drill baby drill seems to work great if you like oil prices 250%-300% higher than they should be-the only way the average American family will ever really start gaining what we lost the last ten years is to stop putting most of their disposable income in their fuel tanks,and thats only half of it these outragous fuel prices drive up the cost of the goods$sevices we all use.The worst part is most people make about the same as they did 10 years ago.Drill baby drill then export at $100.00+ A barrel will never work-(if you want affordable oil)

G-Bush is A dumb ass Cheney gets credit for this one(most people dont know that Cheney was Nixons,Reagans,Bush41s advisor,with the Iraq war all of his hopes and dreams more than came true-at $147.00 A barrel crude oil went up 6 times higer thant it was and his "old company" got the no bid contracts(Bush's family benefited trmendously from this also)I wonder if after Obama leaves office and the new president comes in if people will say things like "Obamas gone now none of the horribe things he did will have ANY effect at all whatsoever on our future.The invasion of Iraq will have an impact on oil prices for generations

I dont blame W-cheney for everything just for the catasrophic devestation that they caused our economy and increasing crude oil prices from $18barrel to $140barrel-with the invasion of Iraq and the axis of evil B-S that effectively put Venezuala out of the game-gas at the pump from $1.10dollars at the pump to $4.00+ Not bad for just two Texas oil men-we will never know how much money their two families made off that but im shure its staggering.Now that the price is way-way up how will we get it down?Drill baby Drill?you see how well that is working.The more American oil production the higer the price.

it's just taking the money DRIVERS pony up for BP gasolineand transferring it to Alaska.(actually, only a small portion of the money will be spent in Alaska;the majority will pay for equipment and salaries elsewhere.)

not only that, but for the benefit of a few local jobs,the taxpayers of Alaska will now have to make up the difference.